As stated on my Home Page, I deeply regret that I am no longer giving illustrated presentations. For further details about the charities I have supported (and will continue to support in other ways) go to the 'Links' page where you will find their website details. The following information describes the talks which I gave between 1998 and 2014.

My talks (of about an hour's duration) were intended to be entertaining rather than filled with lots of scientific facts and figures, but I would be delighted if they made people want to find out more about each topic afterwards. Most of the images in the presentations were photographs which I took on my many trips to Africa, although I occasionally used other images in order to tell a story (always giving credit to the source of those images).

I hope my presentations inspired others to do something they have always dreamt about. I didn't start travelling until I was nearly forty and now that I am retired I wonder how I ever found time to go out to work! Don't let age stop you from trying something new or from trying to make a difference in the world, no matter how small.

Donations to The Gorilla Organization

My apologies for the awful pun, but this talk gave an insight into the lives of the critically endangered MOUNTAIN gorillas. There is recent good news, in that the latest census shows numbers have increased to about 1,000 individuals, but when I first began giving talks about mountain gorillas, there were fewer that 650 left in the world. Let us hope that numbers continue to rise.

My presentation began with stills images of gorillas, then described some of the many projects being funded by The Gorilla Organization which helps all gorilla species (mountain, western lowland, eastern lowland and cross-river gorillas) and their human neighbours in Central Africa.

The presentation ended with my video footage of a wonderful close encounter with a family group of mountain gorillas on the border of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo which I filmed in 1993. At that time it was unusual to get close to the gorillas, but these days, the gorillas are used to visitors so it is much easier to have close encounters now.

Donations to Born Free's Mount Elgon Elephant Monitoring project (MEEM)

When children learn the alphabet, very often 'E' is for Elephant, so we know about these magnificent animals from a very early age. In this presentation, I gave general background information about elephants, described my encounters with savannah elephants in East and Southern Africa, forest elephants in Central Africa, desert elephants in Namibia and I gave information about a special project in Kenya which helps elephants who visit caves!! The presentation ended with my video footage of an attempt to rescue an elephant from a swamp in Kenya. As Iain Douglas Hamilton (of Save The Elephants) was leading the rescue attempt, I donated the video to him. Subsequently a film about the rescue was made using part of this footage and has been shown on television many times.

Donations to Samochima Pre-School, Botswana

In this presentation, I described how a safari to Botswana's Okavango Delta in 2002 turned into a personal odyssey. Not only did I show photographs of Botswana's amazing landscapes and my close encounters with wildlife, but I described a project dear to my heart. This is my involvement with a little pre-school in a remote rural area of North-West Botswana. I have visited Botswana many times since 2002 and Samochima Village in particular since 2005. I have arranged many improvements to the school building using funds kindly donated by family, friends and at my illustrated talks about the wildlife and landscape of Botswana. I helped to teach Samochima Pre-school children basic English and hygiene,how to respect the animals with whom they share their day to day lives (livestock, cats and dogs) and also the importance of protecting the wildlife of their beautiful country. Education is a tool and with it people have the means to determine their own future. Pre-schools are a great way to start very young children on that potentially wonderful journey called Life.

Donations to The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

Madagascar was once attached to Africa before breaking off millions of years ago and is now a huge island to the East of the continent. More than three quarters of the plants and animals living there cannot be found anywhere else in the world. In this presentation, I gave a little background information about this magical island, but at first I described my personal journey. I also gave information about some of the conservation projects being undertaken in Madagascar by The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (known by the shortened form of 'Durrell'), an organisation which helps to protect endangered species. Durrell loaned me some of their stunning photographs of rare and endangered species which I showed at my presentations.